


The Abstraction

by Choi Eimi (Siyah_Kedi)



Series: Agencyverse [5]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:01:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1490908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siyah_Kedi/pseuds/Choi%20Eimi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The Action" chapters one through four from Luhan's POV.  What exactly was Luhan doing when Lay was with Baekhyun and Kris?  What went through his mind when he discovered what they'd done?  Follow Luhan's adventures in Hawaii all the way back to Seoul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Couldn't Be More Gone

“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Luhan said, shaking his head.  He wanted Lay to be  _safe,_  not hurtling into danger every ten minutes or so.  It was a bit difficult when their job description pretty much  _was_  action, danger, and difficult situations, but there was a major difference between reacting to danger, and seeking it out. 

Lay stared at him like he’d grown a third head.  Luhan wished, not for the first time, that he was telepathic and could just  _know_  what was going on inside Lay’s head.  “You’re crazy!” he burst out.  “We’re just going to let him walk away from us?  What if he goes back to Canada?  We’ll never find him.  You’ve  _seen_  the reports coming out of Quebec, you  _know_  that’s where they went, at least at first.”  As his voice rose with each question, Luhan felt his temper fraying. 

“Crazy,” he repeated.  “I’m crazy?   _I’m_ crazy?”  He knew his tone said  _Lay, you have lost your mind entirely,_  but he was getting frustrated.  Tracking down criminals was part of the job if and  _only_ if Ace had decided that was where their time and energies were best spent.  Luhan could not, both as a ranking Agency member and Lay’s boyfriend and field partner let him go haring off on a wild goose chase.  The problem would now be convincing Lay of the futility.  “We are  _not_  shooting off into the dark to find someone who may or may not even be here!” He put his hands on his hips, trying to find another way to get through to him.  “ _Someone_  set the bombs!  And planted the fake envelope!  If he’s insane enough to set  _bombs_  in a  _hotel_  there is no telling what he’ll do!” 

Lay stamped his foot, which was alternately cute and frustrating.  “This could be our only chance,” he said, clearly  _not getting_  the fact that Luhan was not going to let him go.  Luhan reassessed that thought a moment later when Lay tugged on his hair and growled in his throat.  “Why do you always think I can’t do my job?  This is what I  _trained for!_ ”

Luhan was taken aback for a moment.  Lay thought he thought Lay couldn’t do his job?  Then his temper snapped entirely.  “It has nothing to do with you not knowing how to do your job,” he said.  “It’s about your incessant need to always play the  _hero!_ ”

Hurt flashed across Lay’s face.  Luhan regretted the words immediately, but he couldn’t take them back once they were out. 

“That’s what you think I’m doing?”

“It’s what you  _always_  do!” Maybe, Luhan thought, if he could get this through Lay’s thick head  _now_  they could stop arguing and maybe go get a drink.  “Rescue the damsel in distress, fight the dragon, topple the crime syndicate!”

“One of those things doesn’t belong,” Lay said, a ghost of a smile turning up his lips for a brief moment.  Luhan would have appreciated it more if he hadn’t been so frustrated with Lay not listening to him. 

“Augh!  You’re not listening to me!” Luhan shouted, fed up.  “You never listen to me!”

Lay’s expression twisted with anger.  “Oh, you’re just  _lying_  now,” he snarled.  Luhan took a step back at the vituperation in his tone and missed his next words. 

 _Why does everything always end in an argument?_  He wondered.   _We’re settling this somewhere else, it’s too public here._ “I am not going to stand here and argue with you!  We are  _not_  going after Baekhyun and that is  _final!_ ” He whirled on the balls of his feet, expecting Lay to follow him. 

“You’re not my mother!” Lay shouted at his back.  Luhan closed his eyes and counted to ten, but refused to turn around.  He found the nearest bar, and paused outside the door, waiting for Lay to catch up with him.  When five minutes passed and there was no sign of him, Luhan ground his teeth together.

“Fine,” he muttered.  “Fine.  Fucking  _fine._   If you want to sulk like a little kid,  _be my guest._ ”  He let himself into the bar and ordered the strongest drink he could think of.  Five hours of steady drinking later, he wouldn’t have found his hotel if not for the courteous cab driver who picked him up.  He collapsed into the bed without even taking his shoes off, noting only that Lay wasn’t in the room.

 

When the sun woke him up the next morning, he growled and pulled the pillow over his head.  Mornings were never his favourite time of day, and it was especially painful with his head pounding like a thousand tiny devils were inside his skull hammering on it and his tongue swollen and dry.  He staggered off the bed and found the bathroom, pleased that there were little cups there and poured himself a glass of water.  He could almost feel the liquid seeping into every cell, rehydrating him.  He showered and changed, and only once he’d accomplished that did he begin to feel human again.  It was only after  _that_  that he realised Lay was still missing. 

Irritated, he called his mobile and got the voicemail.  “Lay, where are you?  Can we please talk about this?  Call me back.”  He hung up without another word, and looked around.  Nothing had been touched, so it was clear Lay hadn’t been by while he was out or asleep.  He retrieved a combutton and activated it – it was cheaper than making the long-distance phone call. 

“Anyone in there?” he asked, and pinned it to his shirt just in case.  After a few seconds, Sehun came back.

“Sehun here.  Slight delay because we’re bouncing the signal off the satellites, but I hear you, and I see your…hotel room,” Sehun said.  The combutton crackled.  “What’s up?”

Luhan moved into the bathroom to make use of the mirror so Sehun could see him.  He’d never been comfortable with the idea of just talking into the air, and wasn’t sure how Lay had managed to get used to it.  “I was just wondering if you can get a trace on Lay’s cell phone for me,” he said, looking at the combutton.

“That’s disorienting,” Sehun said a moment later.  “And…are you sure?”

Luhan waited to make sure there was nothing else coming, and nodded.  “I’m sure.  He’s not answering his phone, and we had kind of an argument last night.”

Sehun sighed loudly.  “Luhan,” he said.  Luhan rolled his eyes. 

“I know, I know.  It wasn’t my fault this time.  Just trace him for me.  Patch it into my phone if you can.”

“Working on it,” Sehun said, talking over his last words.  “Psh,” he added.  “I can do anything.”

Luhan collected his cell phone, made sure it was on and receiving, and a moment later a program popped up on it with a map of the islands.  A white dot began pinging in the center, which Luhan assumed was his own location. 

“Show me what you’re looking at,” Sehun said, and Luhan held the phone up so that the screen would be visible to the tiny camera in the combutton.  “Uh, okay.  That’s you,” Sehun said, unnecessarily.  “I’ve got a lock on Lay’s phone.  Looks like it’s near the oceanfront, just outside that hotel you guys were in last night.”

Luhan felt the first flickers of apprehension.  “You don’t think he was hurt, do you?”

“Lay?” Sehun sounded surprised.  “Nah.  He’s fine.  Probably still moping, though.”  A brief moment passed, and then a red dot appeared on Luhan’s phone.  As Sehun said, it was just outside the hotel they’d escaped from the night before.  Luhan followed the tracer back down to the oceanfront on foot, just in case Lay had lost his phone and was nearby.  

“I don’t see him,” he said.  The combutton crackled.  Luhan wrinkled his nose. 

“It says you should be practically standing right on top of him,” Sehun came back.  Luhan looked around carefully.  All that was visible in the little green were some trees, an empty bench coated in bird droppings, and a garbage can.  Luhan stiffened, and then, acting on a hunch, crossed the space between himself and the rubbish bin with three steps.

“What are you doing?  Oh,” Sehun said.  “Oh, no.  You don’t think…?”

Luhan peered into the bin and sure enough, there was a cell phone lying propped up against a fast food cup.  Almost as though someone had carelessly tossed it in and forgotten about it.  Luhan felt a tightening in his gut that wasn’t quite fear and wasn’t quite anger, but a combination of the two and something else besides. 

“Do you think he was so angry he threw his phone away?” Sehun asked, apprehensive. 

“Maybe someone threw it away for him,” Luhan said.  “Did you ever take the tracer out of his wallet?”

“Negative,” Sehun said.  “He never knew it was there, but we’ve never had to use it either.  I don’t even know if it’ll still work.”

“Try it,” Luhan ordered, and fished the phone out.  It was blinking with a missed call and a new voice mail – Luhan’s call to him earlier – and the GPS symbol was illuminated.  He tucked the phone into his pocket, and looked at his own as the red dot vanished while Sehun cleared the trace on the phone.  A moment later, another dot – blue, this time – flashed up on the screen.  “That’s the marina,” Luhan said, confused.  “What would he be doing at the marina?”

“Renting a boat?” Sehun suggested.  “How mad at you was he this time?”

Luhan’s heart clenched in his chest.  “Pretty mad,” he admitted. 

“Ace says you’re both to start wearing combuttons at all times, regardless, after this,” Sehun said, with the wary tone of someone asked to relay an unpleasant message.  Luhan sighed. 

“Is there someone to handle it?”

“Myungsoo and Sandeul will trade off,” Sehun said.  “Alright, since there’s not much I can do from here, are you going to go to the marina or what?”

“I’m going,” Luhan muttered, and flagged down a taxi.  At the marina, he was greeted by an old, unpleasant looking man.

“Whaddaya want?”

“I’m sorry,” Luhan said.  “I’m looking for my friend.  I think he might have been here recently.”

“Ain’t no one been by all mornin’, ‘cept you,” the man grunted.  “But you can look around if ya want.  Just don’t touch nothin’.”

Luhan agreed, and began looking around.  The boats bobbed quietly on the water as gulls dipped and turned between the rigging, sails, and masts. 

He felt the first real stab of fear when he found the wallet, lying half-hidden behind an information kiosk.  He snatched it up, and opened it.  Lay’s identification, credit cards, and assorted odds and ends that he’d collected over the years were all there.  So was a few hundred in American bills, as well as an equal amount in won.  “Something’s wrong,” Luhan said.  “His phone, I can understand.  He wouldn’t have left his wallet behind.  He didn’t even know there was a tracer in it.”

“Mugged, maybe?” was Sehun’s rejoinder.

“All the money’s still there,” Luhan said, showing the open wallet to the camera.  He put the wallet in his pocket with the phone, and tried to collect his thoughts.  “Something happened to him after we split up last night,” he said, and even  _he_ could hear the tremor in his voice. 

“You don’t know that,” Sehun said, trying to be comforting and hopeful.  It might have succeeded better if Sehun’s voice hadn’t quivered on the words, too.  But Luhan couldn’t shake the certainty that something terrible had happened to Lay.  Guilt washed over him like a tsunami.  If that was the case, then it was his fault entirely.   _He_  was the one who’d walked away.  His sense of shame increased as he remembered the words they’d hurled at each other just before Luhan left him in that park.  What if he never got a chance to take them back?

His unhappy reverie was interrupted by a shuffle and a cough.  “You done here?”

Luhan looked up, blinking past the watery film in his eyes, to see the harbour master glowering at him.  “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said, his resolve firming up.  There was an empty mooring across from the information stand where he’d found the wallet.   _Coincidence?_

“I ain’t gotta answer to no chink,” the man gruffed.  Luhan’s temper erupted.

Whipping out his own wallet, he waved his identification card in the man’s face.  “I am a federal agent of the Republic of Korea and you are liable to be indicted for failure to cooperate and hampering a missing person’s case!”

The grumpy, unimpressed scowl lifted from the man’s face briefly, and was replaced by surprise and a canny gleam in his eyes.  “You’s a fed?  You didn’t tell me you was no fed,” he muttered.  “I ain’t gonna be indicted for nothing.  You gots questions, I gots answers.”

“Thank you.”  His combutton crackled, but it was quiet enough that the man didn’t notice it.  “You run this marina?”

“Own it, too,” he said, cooperative now.  “Been here fifty years.  Know all the folks who have the boats.  Seen ‘em come and go.  Take care of the boats for ‘em, see?”

Luhan nodded.  “Have you seen him?”  He brandished his phone, which was displaying a picture of Lay. 

“Hmm,” the guy said.  Luhan manfully resisted the urge to take him up by the shirt collar and shake him.  “Hmm.”  He nodded.  “Nope.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Ain’t never seen him.  You’s welcome to come in and check the security cameras, though.”  He turned and shuffled back towards the main office.  Luhan’s hands curled into fists at his sides. 

“Luhan!  You have no jurisdiction here!”  Sehun’s voice was hushed but rapid.  “You could be arrested for impersonating an officer!”

“This is a Korean matter,” Luhan said, setting off after the owner.  “I’m not interfering with the American justice system, just taking care of my own.  If it turns out that he was… if something happened, then I’ll turn it over to the American authorities.”

“Awhat do you need to see?” he asked once they’d gained the office and gotten the video feed up. 

“Last night from between seven pm and four am,” Luhan said.  “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Benjamin Boite,” came the reply.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Boite,” Luhan said with a courtesy he didn’t particularly feel.  His smile was tight on his face, but Boite either didn’t notice or didn’t care as he rewound the video file to the time Luhan had asked for. 

“Ahyup,” he said.  The video frame froze.  “This here’s the front entrance – after hours, everyone needs a key to get in, this here is a private marina,” he added, puffed up with pride.  “This over here’s the walkway and the office, this is pier one, and down the bottom here is pier two.”   He pointed to each of the four video feeds as he explained, and then retreated to let Luhan watch it.  Out of the corner of his eyes, Luhan noticed he hadn’t gone far.  He tuned the man out and focused on the entrance feed.

In the far background of the video, the blossom of fire as the hotel caught when the bombs went off was clearly visible.  The camera shook a little bit under the shockwave, but the recording was uninterrupted.  Luhan fast forwarded through it.  According to the time stamp, it was fourty five minutes later when two shapes arrived outside the gate and unlocked it easily, swinging it open.  One of the figures was carrying a third.  They stopped and talked to whoever was sitting in the office for a moment, and then continued down the pier.  Luhan followed their progress to the other camera feed, and saw them haul the limp body onto the boat – the one in front of the information kiosk, he noted triumphantly – before casting off and motoring out of the harbour.

“These two, who are they?  Did you notice anything unusual about them?  What boat did they take?”

Boite came over and peered at the screen for a long moment.  “Ahyuh,” he said.  “Don’t know their names.  Nice fellows.  Always very polite.  Come down here on vacation sometimes.  I keep the boat for them when they’re not using it.   _The Exotic,_  she’s called. She’s a beauty.  One of the best and biggest in my harbour,” Boite said, proud again on behalf of his charges.

“Who did they talk to?”

“Me,” he said, surprised.  “Said their buddy’d had a bit too much to drink if you know what I mean, and they was taking him out for a cruise to let him sleep it off.”

He rewound and restarted the video and watched them walk down the pier.  The short one stepped close to the taller one carrying the unconscious – his brain refused to contemplate the word  _dead_  – person, and moved around him for a moment.  The picture wasn’t the best; he couldn’t make out more than the fact that one was blond and one dark haired.  When the short man withdrew, he tossed something behind the information kiosk –  _exactly where Luhan had found the wallet._   He felt his excitement rise for a moment as he realised that they definitely had Lay – whoever they were.

“And you don’t know their names?” Luhan asked, turning to Boite with an exasperated expression. 

He nodded again.  “Nope.”

It was like trying to get answers out of a brick wall, Luhan realised.  “Do you keep records of who owns which boat?”

“Ahyuh,” he said again.  Luhan’s fingers twitched.  “Back here.”  He plodded into the corner and pulled out a massive binder.  He opened it and slid it across the table to Luhan.  “Should be there, eh.”

Luhan scanned the boat names rapidly, finding  _The Exotic_  with ease.   Beside it was proof of insurance against break-ins, water damage, storm damage, fire damage… Luhan skipped the insurance notation, and found the names.  “Chris Pike and Robby L. Stine,” he muttered.  The combutton crackled once more as Sehun began to speak and then cut himself off.  It was adding to his twitchiness, and Luhan felt a surge of respect for Lay having put up with that nonsense all these years.  The names were vaguely familiar, somehow, but he couldn’t place them.  At least now he had something to go on. 

And the harbour master’s offer to let him look at the security video had given him another idea as well; there would likely be security cameras in the park.  He should be able to trace exactly what happened.  “May I print this?” He gestured at the screen, which displayed the grainy, unclear pictures of Stine and Pike carrying Lay. 

“Ayuh,” Boite said.  Luhan restrained the urge to throttle him, and merely stepped aside while Boite printed the pictures off. 

“Thank you, Mr. Boite,” Luhan said, sincerely.  “You’ve been a big help.”

To Luhan’s surprise, the grouchy old man responded with a wide, gap-toothed smile.  “Ahyuh?  That’s good to know.  Glad to be of service.”  And he swept Luhan a bow in the old English style, tipping a nonexistent hat.  The bow was surprisingly fluid considering the arthritic-snail pace he walked at.  It hinted at long familiarity with the motion, and Luhan’s respect for the man crept up a few notches.    

He saw Luhan back out through the front gate with his pictures, and turned and shuffle-limped his way back into the office. 

“He was a strange fellow,” Sehun said.  “I could only follow about half of what he said, but anyway – did you catch those names?  They’re fake.”

Luhan’s hopes crashed and died in a blazing inferno.  “How can you tell?”

“I looked it up as soon as he said it,” Sehun said.  “Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine are children’s and young-adult grade horror authors.  Unless they’ve randomly decided to live their stories, I doubt it was them.”

Luhan sighed.  “I’m still going to check out the security camera on the park.  Isn’t there a park office around here?”

“Ooh, good idea,” Sehun said.  “I’ll find it for you.”

Luhan waited as he made his way back towards the park where he’d had the disastrous confrontation with Lay after the mission.  The hotel was cordoned off when he got there, as well as some blocks around it as well, emergency vehicles still surrounding it. 

“The park manager’s office is about sixty yards from your current position,” Sehun said suddenly, scaring the living daylights out of Luhan.  “Look for the Cheesecake Factory.  It’s next to that.”

With a hand over his heart to soothe the pounding, Luhan scanned the nearby shops for the cake shop.  He found it, and headed towards it, wondering if he was going to have any luck.  He decided to use the same tack with the park manager as Boite, though he promised himself he wouldn’t lose his temper this time. 

A secretary opened the door when he knocked.  “Can I help you?”

“My name is Luhan Zhou,” he said, and displayed his badge again.  “I’m a federal agent for the Republic of Korea, investigating a missing persons case.”

“Oh, dear,” she said, and stepped back to let him inside.  “How can we help?”

Luhan smiled winningly.  Through the combutton, Sehun sighed, but the noise was overshadowed by Luhan’s explanation of what he needed. 

The secretary had no trouble setting him up with the video feed from the night before.  Luhan’s breath caught when he saw himself on camera, talking with Lay.  He could remember it so clearly despite the drinking that followed that it felt like he was having a flashback – or an out of body experience.

He was most interested in what happened after he left.  As soon as he stormed out of view, Lay kicked a trash can over, immediately set it back up, and then flung himself onto the ground and sat there until a tall blond man walked up to him.

Luhan’s breath caught as he paused the video.  The man had somehow contrived to avoid showing his face to the cameras hidden against a tree trunk.  Still, Luhan couldn’t shake the thought that it was the same man from the video at the marina.  When his shorter, dark-haired companion came up from an angle, Luhan was sure as he watched Lay react, spinning around and trying to run – being caught easily – the tall man stepping close just before Lay went limp and the brunet staggered slightly before the tall man picked him up.  They then turned, still carrying Lay, and left the screen.

Neither of them had shown their faces, as though they knew where the cameras were and avoided them on purpose.  But they’d openly shown their faces at the marina, he remembered, and then glanced down at the print and had second thoughts.  If they knew about the cameras in the park, they would probably also know that the marina cameras weren’t high enough resolution to be a danger.

But that then begged the question, _who were they?_   Someone Lay was familiar with, obviously, if the way he’d reacted was any indication.  Or maybe they’d just threatened him.  Luhan shook his head and stared.  The dark-haired man  _could_ be Baekhyun, he realised.  But then who was the blond one?   _Kris?_

Luhan rejected that out of hand.  If Lay had been stolen by Baekhyun and Kris, then all hope would be gone.  It would pretty much be guaranteed that Lay wouldn’t make it back alive.  And that was an unacceptable outcome.  It had to have been someone else, someone who’d targeted Lay because of his looks, or perhaps they’d witnessed him escaping from the hotel or … something. 

_Please be alive, Lay.  Please._

 

He returned to the Marina with what he’d learned, and questioned the attendant.  The young woman hadn’t seen anything, but she knew the owners of  _The Exotic_  by face and reputation. 

“Always good guys,” she said.  “Very polite whenever they’re in.  They logged a cruise to Maui, if you’re looking for them.  You could try there.”

Luhan bowed in response.  “Thank you, I think I will.”  Whether they’d been heading for Maui, it was somewhere to start looking.  The only clear thing Luhan knew was that they’d removed Lay from the main island. It wouldn’t stop him from scouring it later if he didn’t find Lay on Maui – every second he wasted was another second that Lay might be –

He needed to get to Maui. 

 

*

 

Unsurprisingly, the mysterious Chris Pike and Robby Stine hadn’t made port in Maui.  Luhan checked every marina, harbour, and port on the entire island, brandishing Lay’s picture to everyone he met.  No one had seen any of them. 

Sehun was less than optimistic.  “Luhan, I think you should just come back,” he said.  “We can notify the authorities, but I don’t want you involved if it turns into a bod-”

Luhan yelled wordlessly to cut him off.  “It’s not!” he shouted.  “Stop  _saying_  that!”  He knew his reaction was out of proportion, and that deep inside Sehun only had his best interests at heart, but it still wasn’t something he could bear to hear.  It would never be something he could bear to hear. 

After a long silence, Sehun said, “Sorry.”

Luhan sighed.  “No, I’m sorry, Sehun.  I shouldn’t take it out on you.  I’m going to do a quick check of the other islands, and then I promise I’ll… I’ll come back whether I find him or not.” The words caught in his throat and threatened to choke him. 

 

Three days later, Sehun called him by phone.  “Luhan, oh – oh god!  Luhan!”

Icy, dreadful fear clutched him.  “What is it?”

“Lay’s back,” Sehun said.  Luhan almost sobbed with relief.

“Then why do you sound like someone’s dog just died?”

Sehun sniffled.  Sehun was  _crying._   Luhan’s stomach knotted itself up so tightly he was afraid he’d throw it up in a moment. 

“He’s – is he hurt?” Luhan asked when Sehun’s silence went on. 

“No,” Sehun said.  “Not…not really.”

“ _Sehun!_ ” Luhan threw everything he could find into his suitcase, racing around the hotel room like a demented chicken.  “I’m catching the next flight out, and I will  _end_  you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong!”

“Lay-doesn’t-remember-you!” Sehun blurted all at once.  The phone slipped through nerveless fingers and crashed to the floor.  “Luhan?   _Luhan_?  Are you there?  Are you okay?   _Luhan!_ ”

Numb, Luhan knelt down and retrieved it.  “I’m here,” he said, dully.  “What – what do you mean, he doesn’t remember me?”

Sehun sighed, sniffled.  “He says he has no memory of you at all.  I… I’m sorry, Luhan, but I don’t think he’s lying.”

 

(to be continued…) 

 


	2. Couldn't Be More Wrong

[Part Two: Couldn’t Be More Wrong]

 

Luhan was on the next flight out of Hawaii and back to Korea as fast as he could get to the airport. He hated the necessary delays that held up his departure, and then once he was airborne it seemed like the flight was a hundred years in duration.

He touched down and immediately called Sehun. “I’m in Incheon,” he said. “I’m going to rent a car – taxis go too slow.”

“Just don’t get killed,” Sehun said. Luhan laughed without much mirth, and rang off before he moved up in the line through customs. Since he hadn’t brought anything back that he hadn’t left with, they got him through quickly. Renting a car took even more of his precious time, but once he was on the familiar roads he felt himself begin to relax. Maybe Sehun was blowing things out of proportion. At least Lay was alive, he told himself. They hadn’t dumped his body somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. And if it was just a knock on the head that was causing his amnesia, well, Luhan would be able to cure that soon enough. He was feeling downright optimistic as he burst through the front doors of the Agency, but Sehun appeared and immediately let a little air out of his balloon.

“Thank god you made it here okay,” he said, sounding tired as he hugged Luhan. His face looked aged, too. Sehun was the youngest, but he looked like he’d aged thirty years since Luhan had last seen him. Before Luhan could open his mouth, Sehun beat him to the punch, gesturing behind him with the package he was holding. “He’s in medical.”

Luhan squeezed him once and picked up his bags before taking off at a dead run for the hospital bay. The door was open and he paused in the entryway when he heard Lay’s irritated voice. It was musical, even hearing him bitching first thing. He couldn’t stop the cheerful smile that spread across his face as he started to announce his presence when the medic beat him to it.

“But what about Luhan?”

“I am going to end the next person who asks me about him! I don’t know who that is, I’ve never even heard of him in my life!” Even in anger, the sincerity was unmistakable.

Luhan’s face fell. Sehun hadn’t been lying. Or exaggerating. His high hopes and good mood disintegrated. “Well, that’s,” he began and then tried to think of something to finish it with when Lay turned around and froze his brain. “Not good,” he finished lamely. It was so good to see Lay, he realised. It hadn’t been more than a week since their argument, but so much had happened it felt more like a year. Even if the agent was looking at him like he was an alien. Because he didn’t remember Luhan.

Quite against his will, Luhan felt his eyes water and blinked to keep them from spilling over. “It’s true?” he asked, his voice trembling. “You don’t remember me?”

Lay looked genuinely sorry – in the way a stranger might look sorry. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”

Before he made a total fool of himself in front of the entire medical staff, Luhan turned and fled, heading automatically for the third-floor dorm rooms occupied by the contacts. There was a private gym up there that he intended to make use of as well, because if he didn’t hit something he was going to hit someone and somehow, he didn’t think that would go over to well with any of the involved parties. Namely because the one he wanted to hit the most was Lay, and it wasn’t Lay’s fault Luhan had let him be captured and … brainwashed. Or whatever they’d done to him.

He was convinced whoever had taken him had caused the memory loss. It was too specific. He apparently remembered everyone and everything except Luhan himself. He reached the third floor and scuttled down the hall, hoping to drop his bags off before they pulled him down with them. Sehun’s voice mingled with one of the new contacts, emanating from his room.

Luhan paused in the hallway and shamelessly eavesdropped when he heard Lay’s name.

“It looks like Lay’s sleeping in this shot, but I can’t tell where they’re at.”

“Look in the background, and the way the camera is swaying slightly,” Myungsoo was saying. “You can tell they’re on a boat.”

“I agree. It’s a really good camera too, look at how close I can get without losing resolution.”

“Oh, nice. It would be cool if you could get that kind of picture from the combuttons,” Myungsoo said.

“Hey,” Sehun warned. “I’d like to see you get a functioning camera with an angle that wide into a space an inch wide and half an inch thick.”

“No thank you. Oh. Oh! Is that… what’s-his-name?”

“Baekhyun,” Sehun all but growled. “We used to know him as number One, Kris’s right hand man.”

Luhan stepped into the room. They were huddled around one of Sehun’s massive computer screens, watching a video of someone lying on a hotel bed. When he took a closer look, he realised it was Lay, and he was tied to the frame. Just on the edges of the picture another man hovered. He moved into the picture more fully, and Luhan recognised Baekhyun with a flower of disgust blossoming in his stomach. The volume was too low for Luhan to make out what they said to one another, but from the gestures, he gathered that Baekhyun was trying to get Lay to drink the water he’d brought. Lay finally relented, and Baekhyun retreated from the room. Sehun fast-forwarded through the video, only to slow it down and rewind it.

“Did you see that?” he asked. “Look at his face and hands.” He zoomed in, and the video quality was so high that Luhan could watch as in the video, Lay’s pupils visibly dilated. “Drugs. I knew it wasn’t consensual!” Sehun snapped.

Luhan let out an involuntary noise, drawing their attention. Sehun slammed his hand down on the keyboard, killing the video images. “Luhan!” he said. “How long were you standing there?”

“Where did you get that?” Luhan asked, his voice a reedy whisper. Then he remembered the package Sehun had been holding when he’d greeted him.

Sehun’s expression was shuttered. “Baekhyun sent it,” he said, after a long pause.

When he realised what the video meant, Luhan’s temper began to fray, rage simmering beneath his calm façade. “They slept together,” he said, monotone.

“Lay looked awful,” Myungsoo said, before Sehun shushed him. Immediately suspicious, Luhan set his bags down and came further into the room.

“Finish the video,” he ordered. Sehun looked nervous.

“I really don’t think that’s something you ought to be –”

“Turn the video back on!” Luhan snarled. Myungsoo quietly got out of his chair and slipped around Luhan, giving him a wide berth before fleeing the room at a run once he reached the door. Sehun glared back at him.

“Whatever they did, I am not letting you watch it!”

Awful echoed in Luhan’s mind. It was followed quickly by whatever they did… He laughed hollowly. “Do you think I’m going to be jealous? I sat through their entire disastrous relationship,” he reminded the techie.

“It’s not that,” Sehun hedged, the anger sliding off his face. “I mean, it’s just… You haven’t seen the way he looks, have you?”

Luhan remembered that apologetic, empty-eyed expression on Lay’s face as he denied knowledge of his longtime partner and more-recent boyfriend, and nothing else. Cautiously, he stepped forward and sat down in Myungsoo’s vacated chair. “You can’t keep walking on eggshells around this for me,” he said, trying to control his emotions. “The more you try to hide, the more I want to find out. And you know I will.”

Sehun sighed. He turned the computer back on, but instead of restarting the video, he brought up surveillance from the medical wing. Lay stood arguing with the medic, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. Luhan gasped out loud to see the marks on his body, from his throat down to his thighs. “That’s… why I didn’t want to show you,” Sehun said. “I didn’t want you to know or…have to see how he got that way.”

Some of the bruises were fading already, but it was evident that there had been a lot of them. “Just show me,” Luhan said. It would kill him a little bit to watch, but he had to know if they’d seriously hurt him. He had to know. Sehun pulled up the video again and restarted it. Luhan watched in silence, noting the same things Sehun had already pointed out – the motion of the camera, the definition of the picture, which was so clear that it was possible to see the sweat beading across Lay’s forehead, and the way his fingers twitched and his hips jerked as the drug Baekhyun had administered began taking effect. Sehun fast forwarded through the act itself, but Luhan could still see how Lay had acquired the bruises. And despite the drug, or maybe because of it, he was definitely an active participant in the event.

Numb to his core, Luhan rose out of his seat when the video ended and stumbled into the hallway. His fist met the wall once, twice. It wasn’t until Sehun wrapped his arms around Luhan and hauled him bodily into the middle of the hall that Luhan became aware of externals again.

“You’re going to break your hand!” Sehun was shouting. It was twinging, Luhan realised, and glanced at it, surprised to see blood on his knuckles. “I told you watching it was a bad idea but noooo, Luhan knows best!”

“I’m going to kill him,” Luhan vowed.

Sehun paused, startled. “Who, Lay?”

“Baekhyun.”

 

*

 

Ace called a meeting to discuss Lay’s memory loss, with the hopes that being in familiar surroundings, with familiar people, would jog something. Luhan picked at the bandages on his hand and watched Lay growl at people who fussed over the still-visible marks on his neck. Once the meeting came to order, he launched straight into his ideas.

“It must have been Baekhyun,” he said, and tried to pretend like he didn’t see Lay scoff and roll his eyes. “He’s had it out for Lay since the beginning, you know he has. He has to have done something now,” he said, earnest. His mood was somewhat improved from the day before when Sehun had nearly threatened to lock him in medical until his mental state recovered, but the sight of Lay looking at him like a stranger was disconcerting and his good feelings were beginning to evaporate.

Sehun, who had at some point switched from the office coffee to a Café brand, gestured with his cup. Luhan still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the office coffee, but he hadn’t forgotten the debate over the quality. “You don’t think he like…brainwashed Lay, do you?” Sehun was asking. Since that was the exact same thing Luhan had thought, he leaned forward to hear Ace’s thoughts.

“That’s not possible,” Ace said with finality. Luhan felt his best and only theory get flushed down the toilet. Ace continued. “Just like it is impossible to create a truly lifelike AI – yet. The technology is there, we just haven’t harnessed it properly. But the human brain isn’t a machine that you can rewrite like a computer.”

Luhan glanced up at Lay, who looked bored.

“Then how do you explain –” Sehun jerked his head towards Lay, who crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m telling you,” he said, in the exasperated tones of someone who had repeated the same words over and over and was getting tired of it, “He didn’t do anything.”

It was obvious he meant Baekhyun. Luhan shook his head, negating Lay’s statement. “You wouldn’t know,” he pointed out. “Not if he’s messed with other memories.” Which as Ace had said, shouldn’t have been possible in the first place but it was devastatingly clear that Lay wasn’t lying, and just as obvious that none of his other memories had been touched. Just the ones that involved Luhan somehow.

Lay’s face was borderline hostile, as was his tone. “No one asked you,” he barked. Luhan felt himself flinch without meaning to, and reminded himself that it wasn’t Lay’s fault. They’d had years of history between them erased somehow and Luhan kept treating him exactly the same.

Sehun looked up from his doodling. “How much is actually gone?” he asked suddenly. They all turned to look at Lay, who shrugged.

“Ask,” Ace suggested dryly.

Luhan wracked his brain quickly for a memory that had made an impression on them both, something that Lay would definitely remember. “How did you escape from Rocky?” he asked, genuinely curious to see how Lay remembered that episode. Luhan knew that it had left an impression on him – he’d begun showing claustrophobic tendencies after his abduction and torture by Kris’s pet psychopath, and Luhan knew better than anyone else the kinds of nightmares he’d suffered in the aftermath. It had been one of the hardest parts of his punishment, being forced to listen to the recordings from Lay’s apartment as he cried out in his sleep, but Luhan was prohibited from contacting him. He drew himself back to the present with a small twitch, and couldn’t resist taking a dig at the agent. “You do remember Rocky, don’t you?”

“Yes, I remember Rocky!” Lay snarled. Luhan felt bad as soon as the words left his mouth – he’d deliberately chosen that episode for the trauma it had inflicted, but he didn’t need to rub salt into open wounds. “Chanyeol and Tao were there,” Lay finished. Luhan felt another piece of his heart break off and drift into the void. Whatever Baekhyun had done to him, he’d done it deeply. If he hadn’t been watching Lay so closely in that moment, however, he might have missed the way the blood drained from his face and a small crease appeared between his eyebrows. He swayed in his seat, and Luhan was about to call a halt to the meeting when Lay continued. “Wait,” he said, and everyone else turned to look at him. Luhan noted how his skin was taking on a greyish tinge, and discreetly sent a message to Medical on his phone for one of them to come and collect Lay. “Someone else…was there… I remember them picking me up…”

Luhan realised that whatever Baekhyun did wasn’t permanent, not if Lay was already getting flashes back. A moment later concern overtook the excitement for Lay’s progress, because the agent was staggering out of his seat, distinctly green by now, and apologising. He fled, a moment before Sungjong poked his head in the door.

“Where’s Lay?”

“Restroom,” Ace said. “We’ll reconvene this in a few hours.”

 

*

 

Luhan spent the unexpected free time in his dorm room, looking up any past instances of ‘brainwashing’ such as what Lay was experiencing. When his phone beeped with a reminder from Ace, he hurried back down to the meeting room, his brain spinning with new information. He saw Lay already there, talking to Sehun, and impulsively hugged him.

When Lay stiffened, Luhan pulled away guiltily. “Sorry,” he said immediately. “Habit,” he added, and took in the slightly nervous, slightly sceptical, slightly guilty look Lay shot him before they returned to their seats.

“Now that we’re all here,” Sehun began, but Ace held up one hand to forestall him.

“I’ve invited two others who are acquainted with Lay,” Ace said. Luhan turned automatically, wondering who it would be. When Chanyeol strutted in, he nearly laughed out loud. Tao followed him at a more peaceful pace, settling himself behind his longtime partner. Idly, Luhan wondered if there were any feelings between them. They had, after all, been working together longer than Lay and Luhan. They moved in tandem, like two extensions of the same body, despite the disparate attitudes they presented.

“Brainwashing,” Sehun said, and thumped his fist down on the table to make his point. “You saw how he got a headache trying to remember. Doesn’t that look just like a movie?” He looked each of them in the eye, imploring them to realise his theory.

Luhan had a sudden flashback to a conversation he’d had with Lay, regarding ‘things that happened in movies.’ “Like a ninja,” he murmured, and saw Lay’s head come up as though pulled on a string. His breath caught in his throat as he wondered if Lay was perhaps remembering that conversation as well.

“It’s not possible,” Tao said, shaking his head. Sehun’s shoulders slumped as Tao shot down his theory. Chanyeol propped his legs up on the table, ignoring Tao’s dark look, and studied Lay.

“Maybe hypnotism,” he suggested.

Sehun brightened again, reminding Luhan of a puppy. “A hypnotic suggestion to forget Luhan? Is that possible?” They all turned to look at Lay, who was beginning to show signs of agitation.

“I’m not hypnotizable,” he said. “We learn to evade it in training.”

“So you believe the training took?” Ace asked. Attuned as he was to nuance, Luhan was pretty sure he was the only one who caught not only the surprise in his voice, but also the pride.

Lay looked uncomfortable. “I remember that before I underwent it, the lady was able to hypnotise me easily,” he said, flushing an attractive pink. “Afterward, I was sort of immune,” he finished.

“Hmm. We do try to anticipate points, but there’s usually been no follow up to make sure that it’s possible. Could the training have failed?”

There was a brief silence as they all considered the possibility, and what they could do about it.

Sehun raised his hand. “I’ll go find out if that girl is still available, have her come back and hypnotise him again,” he suggested. Luhan’s heart overflowed with love and pride for the younger man. At Ace’s nod, he left. The room descended into silence, except for Chanyeol’s insistent tapping on the arm of his chair.

When Sehun returned, it was like he’d brought life back with him. As soon as he stepped in the door, they all straightened and looked at him.

“She’ll be able to come in tomorrow,” he announced.

“Agent Lay, you’re staying here at headquarters again tonight,” Ace ordered. Luhan watched Lay’s expression fall as his shoulders drooped in disappointment.

“Okay,” he said, clearly unhappy with the arrangement. Luhan resolved to bring him some of the coffee he drank, and collect some of the movies from his empty apartment.

 

Later that night, with the cup in one hand and a bag of Lay’s favourite movies and snacks in the other, Luhan lingered outside the door of the room Lay was occupying. He could have easily gotten into the Agency’s security system and turned on the cameras to see what he was doing, but he’d had years of watching Lay on camera and not enough time of knowing him face to face.

“…Boo!” Sehun crept up behind him and shouted in his ear. Luhan yelped and nearly dropped the coffee.

“Sehun!”

“Why are you lurking outside Lay’s room like a creeper?”

Luhan shifted the bag to the hand with the coffee, supporting it with two fingers, and pressed his now-free hand to his chest to calm his racing heart. “You scared the hell out of me,” he accused.

“I meant to. And I don’t think the door wants the coffee,” Sehun added. “If you want to give it to him, knock.”

“I know,” Luhan said irritably. “I was going to, I was just –”

“Going to wait out here until doomsday,” Sehun interrupted, and finished for him. “Just knock.”

Luhan gave him a helpless look. “But he hates me,” he said.

Sehun rolled his eyes. “He does not. He’s just uncomfortable.” Then with a wicked gleam in his eye – that in hindsight should have alerted Luhan that something was going on in that devious young mind – he banged on the door. “Hey, Lay!” he shouted. He grinned at Luhan, and beat a hasty retreat before the door swung open.

Lay was slightly taken aback to see Luhan standing there. “Uh,” he said. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Luhan repeated stupidly. “I, uh. Brought you some coffee.” He felt unaccountably shy, until Lay’s face lit up.

“Oh, thank you! The coffee here is like mud.” He accepted the cup graciously, and looked askance at the bag. “What’s that?”

“Your movies. I went to your apartment for them, since you’re stuck here…” he trailed off as Lay’s face became a shining beacon of happiness.

“You’re amazing,” he said. “Would… you like to come in?” He stepped back and held the door open wider. Luhan entered, and immediately noticed that the room showed evidence of Lay’s occupancy. Clothes littered the floor, reminiscent of his bedroom back at the apartment. Clearly, Luhan was one day going to have to teach him about laundry baskets.

Following Luhan’s gaze, Lay took in the state of his room and flushed scarlet. He set the coffee down and raced around, picking the clothes up and shoving them under the bed. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“I’m used to it,” Luhan said, trying to pass it off as normal, but it had the opposite effect when Lay’s face became shuttered. “What…?”

Lay waved it off, selecting a movie and dithering around for a few moments before inviting Luhan to sit on the little couch with him. They watched the fairy arc over the castle as the movie began playing, staring at the screen in awkward silence. “It’s just strange,” Lay said at last, drawing Luhan’s attention to him. “I don’t know you at all, but you know everything about me.” He flicked a glance in Luhan’s direction and met his eyes briefly. “Were we… partners for a long time?”

“Years,” Luhan said softly. Lay flinched. “Most of it, I was just a voice to you, just a computer. We fought all the time.”

“Because you’re argumentative,” Lay muttered.

“I am not!”

“You’re arguing now.”

Defeated, Luhan chuckled softly. “We both are,” he said.

“I remember a little,” Lay said after a brief silence. “I knew… I had a contact. I remember thinking that, that I had a contact that was a computer. Ace asked me what the designation was, and I couldn’t remember. I remember now, though. AI-L30995.”

Luhan reached out before he could help himself, and buried his fingers in Lay’s hair. Lay submitted to it with a peaceful expression on his face. “Why can’t you remember me?” he asked. Lay’s eyes drifted shut.

“Baekhyun told me,” he said, in a distant tone of voice that frightened Luhan, “He said, ‘I think it’s only fair to tell you that this second part isn’t for you. It’s for…’” He trailed off. “I don’t know how he finished it. It must have been you.” He squinched his eyes shut. “I tried fighting him then. Whatever he said to me, I didn’t like it. We were pretty evenly matched,” Lay continued, still vague. “But he called Kris in and they held me down and –” he turned his arms over, looking at the fading bruises. “There,” he said, and pointed to a small red spot just beneath his elbow. “Some kind of drug. It was cold,” he added, and shuddered. Luhan scooted closer, awed and horrified by what he was hearing. Lay didn’t protest when Luhan drew him close, one arm around his shoulder, but the shivering stopped. “Then everything went blank. Then I woke up outside the Agency, and I had no memories of how I got there.”

“Jesus,” Luhan murmured. He resolved to find Baekhyun and beat the answers out of him if he had to. Lay blinked and looked up as though he’d just remembered Luhan was there. He looked at Luhan’s hand, curled around his shoulder, and when Luhan made to pull away, caught his fingers. “Don’t,” he said. “It’s…you can… I like it,” he said, uncomfortable but honest. Luhan relaxed sideways on the couch and drew Lay over him like a blanket, both of them turned to watch the screen, some animated film starring a girl with impossibly long blonde hair. He fell asleep before the movie was over, comforted by Lay’s weight pressing him down and the ease with which Lay surrendered to cuddling with him like that.

 

*

 

He woke to Lay’s startled shout and a sudden chill as his human blanket rolled off the couch and away from him. “Huh? Whazzat?”

“Sorry! Sorry!” Lay was anxious and too loud. Luhan sat up and blinked to clear the sleep from his eyes, squinting at the television and the irritating music it was playing over and over. The movie had reverted to the menu when it was done and apparently just looped all night. He turned his attention to Lay, who was looking at him from the floor with an apologetic expression.

“What?” Luhan grumped.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Lay said. “I forgot.”

Luhan winced. Those words from Lay’s lips would never be the same again. “It’s okay,” he muttered. “I need coffee.”

The door flew open, startling them both all over again. Sehun burst through it. “Lay! Have you seen Luhan? He wasn’t in his… room…”

He calmed down as he actually stopped and took in the scene in front of him, before grinning softly and reversing back out the door. “Sorry, sorry,” he called. “Carry on!” The door slammed shut with a deafening bang. Luhan winced again.

Lay chuckled. “Well, I’m awake now,” he said. Luhan grunted. Mornings were not his favourite time of day, no matter what. When he’d been Lay’s contact, he’d learned over the years to get his sleep in short power naps throughout the day, since he was required to be alert whenever Lay so much as walked out the front door, no matter what time it was. Since becoming Lay’s partner, he was gradually shifting his sleep schedule into something resembling a normal diurnal existence, and in the process was beginning to realise why Lay hated being woken up so much.

“Coffee,” Luhan repeated, sullen.

“Can we go –”

Luhan read Lay’s mind and shook his head, cutting him off midsentence. “You’re not supposed to leave.”

Lay wrinkled his nose. “But the office coffee is shit,” he whined.

“We’ve been over this already.”

“We have? Anyway, Ace never said I couldn’t leave…”

“It was implied,” Luhan insisted. “And I outrank you, so I’m giving the order. Now come on. You can deal with it for a couple more days.” It was better to have Lay whining, miserable and unhappy with him than roaming the streets somewhere while Baekhyun was still out there, possibly waiting for his chance to hurt Lay some more.

 

With some caffeine in his system, Luhan was feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and dragged a sullen Lay into the meeting room with him to begin the meeting all over again. The hypnotist who’d trained them to resist suggestion would be coming in soon, and he was thrumming with nervous energy.

When she arrived, she immediately kicked them all out into the hallway, and Luhan spent one of the tensest half hours of his life pacing a line into the carpet.

When they were allowed back in, she admitted defeat. “There’s a rumour of a drug called delete,” she said, and it pinged in Luhan’s memory. He tuned her out before she left, and tried to remember why it was familiar to him.

His research the other day had brought it up, he realised, and wondered how they could get their hands on some of it. Attuned as he was to Lay’s every movement, he was the first and only one to notice the other man sink into a chair, his face an off shade of grey.

“Lay, are you alright?”

When he looked up, Luhan noticed that his pupils were blown and he wasn’t focusing properly. “I feel weird,” he said, the words slurring together. He fell limply back against the chair a moment later, and Luhan vaulted over the table to get to him.

“Lay! Lay!”

Medical appeared as if by magic, and carted him away. Luhan went down to sit beside him and wondered what to expect. It wasn’t Lay opening his eyes an hour and a half later and insisting he needed coffee.

“What happened?”

“What?”

Luhan felt his temper begin to fray. “You passed out.” Lay looked around and took in his surroundings.

“Oh.”

“What. Happened?”

“Baekhyun…”

Luhan threw himself out of the chair, overturning it, and stormed out of the infirmary before Lay could finish. That is the last straw. I’m going to find him, and if I have to torture it out of him, I’m going to make him undo whatever the hell he did!

Sehun stopped him at the door. “If you’re going out, you need to take this. Since Myungsoo isn’t ready yet, I’ll be your contact.” He handed Luhan a combutton, and tapped the microphone headset he was wearing.

“Don’t you even want to know where I’m going?”

“To look for Baekhyun. Do you think I don’t know you after all these years?”

“Heh.” Luhan affixed the combutton to his shirt, and started for the door. Sehun stopped him again before he made it.

“Luhan,” he said. Luhan froze in his tracks, and turned to look at him. Sehun held up a postcard. “This came with the mail. It’s from him, for you. All it says is…”

He drifted into silence as Luhan covered the distance between them in two steps, and snatched the card out of his hands. In Baekhyun’s now-familiar handwriting, it contained an address and three words.

I’ll be waiting.


End file.
